Chapter 33: This Context Feels So Familiar
Because he was too bored, Yun Ce gave E Ji a rope and let her lie on the wooden raft to fish for snakes.
Without using a hook, once the snakes touch the rope, they will climb up on their own, especially those with several sets of ventral scales, which climb the rope very quickly.
When the snake climbs to the end of the rope, slowly lower the rope. If the snake climbs fast, speed up lowering the rope; if the snake climbs slowly, slow down lowering the rope. In short, make sure the snake’s tail stays in the water…
E Ji really liked this game and played very happily. Several times she was tricked by the snakes; they clearly climbed slowly but suddenly arched their bodies and jumped up. At that moment, E Ji would hit the snake flying with a stick.
Until that bare-assed general bit E Ji’s rope with his mouth, she got scared and loudly called for Yun Ce.
Yun Ce pulled the rope like fishing and hauled this useless general up onto the wooden raft to drain the water, and conveniently checked his injuries.
After checking, Yun Ce felt there was no need to save him, so he mercifully used the newly learned sparse language to say: “You should die.”
“I know I must die, but I have no face to meet the ancestors under the nine springs.”
“Indeed shameful enough.”
Who would have thought that upon hearing Yun Ce’s sarcastic words, this man’s eyes actually shed blood tears, and choking he said: “One hundred iron cavalry, one hundred light infantry, one hundred spearmen, two hundred pikemen, eighty archers… Ah—98%”
1 Yun Ce smiled upon hearing this and wrote on the wooden slip: “I have heard that Great Han armored soldiers are unmatched in the world. King Huo with eight hundred iron cavalry could rampage across the northern grassland killing countless enemies. You, a military marquis, commanding a full company of armored soldiers, couldn’t even break a thousand refugees. Dying would be clean.”
1 After reading the wooden slip, the general angrily said: “Why write my family’s shame on the wooden slip? 99%”
1 Yun Ce continued to write: “I fear that if spoken aloud, it would be heard by mountain and wild spirits, belittling my Great Han soldiers and blaspheming my Great Han’s successive kings.”
1 The general weakly closed his eyes, seemingly also feeling too ashamed to respond, and softly said: “Only one thousand two hundred refugees, my army needs a proper frontal battle to win, and still guarantee that every participant gets a gongshi nobility title after the battle. How would you choose?”
1 Hearing this, Yun Ce lifted his foot and kicked the man he had just pulled up off the wooden raft. Anyway, this man was beyond saving, and there was no need to save him; better to die early and reincarnate early.
1 The general fell off the wooden raft with a splash into the water. When he floated up again, he was in a head-down frog swim position, looking like he had given up on survival.
1 Yun Ce and E Ji lay on the wooden raft watching the general commit suicide. As a string of bubbles emerged from his mouth and nose, his corpse slowly sank.
1 The general indeed killed himself resolutely. You know, when throwing a dead body into water, due to residual air in the lungs, it will float up soon. But throwing a live person into water, water fills the lungs, and the corpse sinks, unless it rots and swells like a giant view, it won’t float again.
1 After hearing that military marquis’s last words, Yun Ce had already understood the antecedents and consequences of the entire event, just because this way of doing things was very familiar to him.
1 In plain terms, the court discovered one thousand two hundred rebels needing troops to exterminate. After the edict reached the locality, the army was very joyful because everyone knew these rebels were very weak, with many old, weak, women, and children among them. Sending soldiers would capture them easily, and military merit would be at hand.
2 The matter went wrong because of the military merit. Such plump military merit, how could it let a bunch of lowly soldiers get it for nothing?
2 Thus, local landlords, powerful families, and local officials all wanted to seize the chance to stuff their own sons into the army to participate in this sure-win battle and reap a wave of merit.
2 If only stuffing in a portion of people, the matter could still succeed. But those people were too greedy: you stuff in one, I stuff in two. In the end, stuffing and stuffing, they replaced all the soldiers under this military marquis. From that military marquis’s combat situation, that group didn’t even leave him personal guards spots.
2 Although the refugees were a mob, impossible to beat regular soldiers in the Great Han army, dealing with a group of cowardly sons of wealthy officials was no problem for them.
2 In the end, it became a total army rout. According to Great Han military law as Yun Ce knew, this military marquis, even if not dying on the battlefield, would be beheaded upon return. Those routed soldiers, upon return, awaited only strict military law: not only would they die, their parents, wives, children, and brothers would die too.
2 However, judging from their crazy stuffing of people, there should be a backup plan.
2 Looking at the entire Great Han history, only military law was strictly observed by most people. This also created the miracle at the end of Eastern Han: although warlords divided the land and people had no livelihood, Great Han’s armies always maintained high combat power, invincible against foreign tribes.
2 From today’s war, military law was still in effect. Otherwise, that military marquis wouldn’t have fought to the death at the last moment; he knew he couldn’t live upon return and chose to die in battle to not implicate his family.
2 From a company of five hundred regular soldiers having all officers and soldiers replaced, Great Han’s officialdom was rotten to the core at this time.
2 After Yun Ce finished recounting the investigation report of witnessing the Great Han army’s battle this time, Doggy stored it.
3 The flood on the wasteland came swiftly and receded quickly too. In two or three days, it would return to normal. Since this flood trapped him here, he would stay here for a few days; anyway, there was nothing urgent to do.
3 Yun Ce used to be very anxious, anxious about everything, anxious to achieve results, anxious to get promoted— in short, anxious. Now, not anxious. He felt destiny had little to do with one’s own efforts and struggles. His anxious rushing resulted in being thrown out as a satellite relay station.
3 Just like those sons of wealthy officials anxious for military merit and nobility titles, anxiously rushing away their own lives.
3 Better to spend the time developing more ways to eat Yi Tree starch.
3 For example, knead this starch into a ball, roll it into thin sheets, casually toss on charcoal fire; the thin sheet will rapidly expand when heated. Flip it a couple times by hand, and a thin pancake appears, fragrant and crisp.
3 Spending time making food to reward oneself is never a loss. Serving this body comfortably is a very difficult thing.
3 E Ji continued lying on the wooden board fishing for snakes. The snakes had been soaking in water almost a day, their constant swimming had nearly exhausted their stamina. Even snakes breathe with lungs; once stamina is exhausted, drowning becomes inevitable.
3 Therefore, the snakes able to climb the rope were very anxious; they urgently needed a dry warm place to raise their body temperature. In urgency, a snake with flashy colors looking very fierce grabbed the rope with ventral scales, body thrusting up, about to climb up when Yun Ce cut the rope with a knife and threw it out.
3 When the snake was thrown out, it croaked once in the air. Doggy said that snake was cursing him.
3 If it were just snakes and insects coming to his tree for luck, then some huge herbivores, unable to eat grass during flood season, also ran from far away intending to nibble some green leaves.
4 They waded over, directly ignoring Yun Ce and E Ji, front feet stepping on the tree trunk, stretching necks to forcefully pull leaves. Just one herbivore stripped this lush big tree bald.
4 Yun Ce threw the wooden raft into the water, tied rope to the herbivore’s tail, put E Ji and that sheep on the wooden raft, preparing to leave with them after the herbivore finished eating the leaves.
4 E Ji was long scared silly. For Yun Ce, this was another novel experience after riding the dragon: that time he was grabbed like a pet; this time, facing the massive herbivore, his wooden raft was just a blade of grass.
4 At first, Yun Ce was very vigilant, fearing this thing would kick him. After walking half a day, he found the herbivore only yearned for distant green grass, so he lay with E Ji on the wooden raft wherever the herbivore went.
4 Later seeing land, Yun Ce had to untie the rope and bid farewell to the herbivore, mainly because the moment it stepped on land, it shat a huge pile, over a hundred jin of runny shit; Yun Ce had to flee with the wind.
4 Restoring the wooden raft to a horse carriage didn’t take long; in between, the sheep and horse always bound by them were released.
4 The reason few people are seen on the wasteland is completely because the villages are too dispersed. One heavy rain gathers the sparse crowds together.
4 Refugee camp is a temporary human gathering area spontaneously formed by small groups of same surname, clan, village, relatives. Government officials might exist; to prevent riots among the people, they proactively delegate power to the groups.
4 Because arriving here, you can’t demand higher personal safety.
4 If the refugee camp’s hardships are truly unbearable, you can learn from those one thousand two hundred and leave the refugee camp to seek a living on the wasteland, ultimately becoming soldiers’ military merit.
5 Yun Ce could foresee that those one thousand two hundred would definitely die and definitely become others’ military merit. From any angle, their strength was too weak.
5 E Ji believed Yun Ce would definitely become a gongshi; can’t get too close to refugee rebels. No matter how bad the refugee camp, they needed to go to the refugee camp, deal with government officials, get a pass, and continue their journey.
5 Yun Ce felt E Ji was very right.
5 Driving the sheep cart, Yun Ce walked less than three li and encountered twenty-eight robbery cases. The most serious one prepared to kill Yun Ce, rob the sheep cart, and bring E Ji to be their collective wife.
5 The mildest robbery case came from two kids under eight, holding stones, warning Yun Ce to give them a bundle of fodder grain, or else smash his head.
5 The people wanting E Ji as their collective wife would never again have anxiety about marrying a wife, because no need—any man grabbed by accomplices by legs upside down spread, crotch hit with dozens of sticks, doesn’t need a wife.
5 Yun Ce was a very reasonable person: whatever you rob from me, I must thoroughly extinguish your robbing mindset.
5 Three li, twenty-eight battles, Yun Ce twenty-seven wins one loss.
5 When Yun Ce drove the sheep cart into the driest, highest ground of the refugee camp, the original residents there had quietly left, and even cleaned that spot spotless.
